It wasn't a terrible idea. That meant it was really bad. Gwen ducked her head and looked down at her knees. She had even thought about how it wasn't a very good idea after she said it. Why hadn't she amended her statement right then? Because Iestyn was right, she was pretty stupid.

Competition? She brightened at that word and jumped to her feet. Unlike some of her classmates, nothing was affecting Gwen's ability to move. She'd heard rumors that it was a time-thief stealing their youth or something. The thought was pretty frightening, but as long as Gwen remained unaffected, there wasn't a problem as far as she was concerned.

"We could use spells that cause the Chort to trip? Or not be able to move it's legs?" Hadn't she seen a student do that in the school hallway just the other day? It seemed like a valid thing to Gwen.

A spell that would involve the legs? Michael could think of a few and so apparently did the other students because they had just named the ones he had been thinking.

So he decided to go outside of the box. He raised his hand. "What about Levicorpus? It hangs you in the air by your feet." He couldn't see why that wouldn't work on a Chort.

Messer quickly jotted down what Professor Romanos said. Practical time? Finally. Wand out. Huh? They need to stand up? Okay that might be a problem for him since his back still hurt and his legs feel a little weak but he was looking forward for the practical portion. The Seventh year carefully got up and put his hand on the desk to steady himself.

The first spell ve'll be practicing...involves our feet. Hands up. "Jelly-Legs Curse, Professor?" He offered. That curse could give them sometime to run from the creature, no?

Lucas was a) fascinated by this weirdo horned creature that looked a lil' bit like a yeti but was cooler because it was so dangerous and b) grossed out by this weirdo horned creature. His first instinctual answer had been the jelly legs curse (something he'd come across his vast, read: sparse, preliminary readings) but that had been said, twenty times over so he just took notes.

What did LEVICORPUS do? Now that was a good question.

Oichi felt giddy for getting the answer right and felt even more intrigued to know it could be used to conjure more then just ropes, Awesome!!! She then listened as the lesson progressed and realized they would be getting on their feet and moving soon. She hoped her now elderly changing body would not get in the way too much. Its mind of over matter, you are as young as you choose to feel, gulp, I hope Oichi then heard the next question and did her best to answer it, Oichi raised her hand, "Well one of my favorite spells involving the feet is the dancing feet spell, sure the leg locker curse may be more common but if you want to make a truly terrifying encounter more comedic and perhaps relieve some tension to help you think more clearly I would think the dancing feet spell would be great. Plus once their feet are out of there control you can easily body bind them. ".

When Adi had suggested Duro, he had no idea he would be correct. He scribbled that down on his parchment along with some of the other correct answers from his classmates.

And then it was time for the practical lesson! Finally! Adi grabbed his wand, eager to get started. But first, the question. Adi had an idea. He raised his hand. ''How about Tarantallegra, Professor?''

Ian tried to hide his disappointment. Of course he had been trying to get the creature to get transported, but I suppose that transporting yourself was just as good. Come to think of it, why not just apparate? Of course he was too young to apparate, according to what he was told here at the school, but maybe in a pinch.

When she asked the students to stand, Ian exhaled. Now I've got to stand. This should be interesting.Ian thought to himself. He picked up his cane, placed it in an upright position and used it and the desk as a way to push himself to a standing position. He reached inside his robe and pulled out his wand and wondered how to do this. He was right handed and he was already occupying that hand with the cane. Perhaps he could try left handed. He'd never done that before, but maybe it was a good opportunity to learn to be ambidextrous, in case he lost an arm or something.

In answer to the professor's question, he responded Would that be the leg-locking curse?

Delilah took out her wand from her bag and stood up. Heh. The practical session of the class was about to begin. She was excited, to say the least.

..... But, another question! WHAT. Couldn't she just tell them what the spell was? SIGH. This professor was rather annoying. Anyway.. Something to do with the feet. Hmm. She frowned a for a moment before raising her hand to answer the question. "The Jelly-Legs curse?" That was the only one she could think of at the moment.

Spell involving feet. HMM. Tarantallegra, sure. Astrid knew that. She also knew the Jelly-Legs Curse so that was no big deal. She was considering the Toenail-Growing Spell but... c'mon, why would you want a demon to have extra long toenails? That would've made it even more dangerous than it already is, so Astrid mentally scratched that out of the possible list of spells involving the feet.

She raised her hand. "The stickfast hex perhaps, Professor? It makes the victim's shoes or feet stick to the ground," Astrid said. Colloshoo was the incantation, yeah? She reminded that. Not sure if she's read it before or if it was in her past lessons but yeah whatever. She was so down for the activity part of this class. Enough theory stuff. It made her brain hurt.

So fire was out of the question?

Well, that did it. Grandmother Lafay would be toast if she ever came across one of these things.

So what then? And it didn't escape Sophie that there was mention of an Inter-house competition. Merlin only knew the Slytherins needed a few extra hundred house points at this points. Maybe they'd be playing for them. So anyway...about that foot spell. "I'm going to go with the Leg-Locker," she said, raising her hand. "Put 'im in his place!"

... Stand up?

... Erm... okay.

Sloooooooowly, and with the use of both of his hands, Alec pushed himself up into a standing position. There. That wasn't so bad, was it? He didn't even groan or grumble, just stood there letting out a puff of air. The idea of a practical portion sat well with the part of him that wanted to do well in this NEWT and... wanted to be able to protect himself against a creature like this. Yeah.

People were smart, did they know? He had hardly managed to get up and there were already answers flying around. He couldn't think of anything new so, instead resorted to tapping the floor once or twice. Slippery. Why was it so-- ... Oh. The hand went up in the air. "They all sound reasonable but... I think I'm going to go with the Stickfast Hex. Erm... because of the slippery floor," Nodnod.

Her answer hadn't been strictly wrong, but it was still no good. That was okay, though. Y'win some, y'lose some., she reassured herself. Romanos was right, of course, when she thought about it more - that probably WASN'T the smartest idea. Still, it hadn't been her first choice of answer, so if Sophie ever encountered the thing, maybe she'd still have better luck, as her instinctive answers of the freezing charm and full-body bind would have some kind of effect on the creature.

Sloooooowly but surely, the second year pushed herself to a standing position using the wall as a support and flicked her wand from its holster. She had been down too long, she knew, because her legs were wobbly and tingly and her bottom was sore. Sophie pondered the professor's question for awhile, listening to all the other students' answers in the mean time.

...Yeeeeep. All of those sounded like good answers, and she couldn't think of anything else that involved the feet or legs, so... she kept her hand down this time.

UGH they'd have to get moving soon, wouldn't they? NOOOOOO. Caleb wanted to SIT and rub his achy joints in his knees. He raised his hand though, figuring now was as good a time as any to start talking again. "I'm gonna go with Jelly-Legs Jinx. If the floor is slippery it'll be REALLY hard to try and stand on it," he added. That'd be kind of fun for an activity, right?

Fun for OTHERS of course, and fun for HIM watching, but he wasn't about to do any of that.

Caelen hurriedly stood with the rest of the class. Standing meant that things were happening. Spell things. Defensy things. Which meant adventure things. Were they going to practice a defense spell against something that looked slightly like a Chort? Because the real one sounded dangerous. Though at Hogwarts, it was a scarily real possiblity. THough she was going to be running the other way if it got too dangerous. The redhead liked to pretend that she was brave and showed it sometimes, but she had her limits. She was only eleven after all.

Ummm, with your feet? FEET? Did this involve laying on the ground and using your feet to cast the spell? Like holding the wand with your feet? Would that even work? The first year made a mental note to try that when she got home. OF course when no one was watching. It would be reaaallly awkward if her mom taught her laying on the ground and trying to do spells with her feet. Or like maybe you had to plant your feet in the ground to make sure you didn't fly backwards? That made more sense. And involved less wand to feet action. Either way, Caelen didn't have a total clue. Just a random collection of clues that made no sense.


Which meant that it was time to write notes and observe everything. Because she wanted to look at EVERYTHING HOgwarts had to offer. Homeschooling did that to you. And well, Hogwarts wasn't as boring as a small white room in her Aunts basement. But painting was a class there sooo... it evened itself out well.


And though it was a feeling that she shouldn't have THIS late in her Hogwarts year, Caelen felt a pang of homesickness again. Of course; she felt it before, but the eleven year old thought that she oppressed it well then and it didn't come into play. But now, it hit. So, fighting the small frown on her face, she opened her notebook and started to write down all of the new notes she had to do. Important things were important.

Nigel did not really have much to add. He guessed you could try a permanent stick on the Chort's legs if you were fast enough. But you would need to be really really lucky. Though to be fair you would be lucky if any spell would hit Chort.

You could just aim the freezing charm at the legs also. Maybe Nigel was taking to too literally and it was just the leg locker curse or Jelly-Legs Curse. But those seemed too easy an answer.

Bay felt a nudge, oh he had to get out of his comfortableness. But since Professor Romanos was being so nice he stood up and took out his wand.. "would we be working on the leg locker spell Professor?" he asked while looking up at her.

Making sure his footing was okay he waited for the rest of the lesson to resume.

The seventh year slowly rose to her feet, knee practically screaming in pain. Her wand free hand drifted under her robes to touch it, and.... did it... did it feel swollen? Trying not to focus on her bodily issues, she directed her attention to the professor's words instead. Of course she knew there was pressure in explosions, but Alice had been thinking since most of them involved fire, they'd not be an option. Apparently, though, they were.

Which led to her next answer. "Are we going to be exploding feet, prof? Blasting 'em off? Bombarda Maxima? Expulso?" Yes, please! She hadn't made a good eruption in ages. Could they?

Giving Romanos a hopeful look, she awaited her response.

Ella wasn't sure why Romanos was smiling and chuckling at her thought process but she was going to take it as a good sign. Eyebrows went up a tiny bit when she then jotted something down but yeah, no questions about that. She'd simply ponder what was written quietly. It was nice to know that her spell suggestion was useful too. Y'know, in case she ever came face-to-face with a Chort.

And then they were standing up. Or meant to, anyway. The eighteen year old bit her lip and stood up quite slowly, straightening out with a little wince. Sore lower back was sore. She'd need to ice that later. Mhm.

Wand in one hand, other hand pressed gently to her side, Ella listened to the others offer spells that had to do with feet and legs. She agreed with their suggestions so she didn't offer up anything else. She did shoot a curious look at Hulk, though. Blasting off feet, really? ...Gryffindors.

Kace understood what the professor was saying. He shrugged and it seemed logical to run for your life before stunning them. He made a mental note. Now he heard the professor move on and she wondered what spell involved their feet. He raised his hand and gave a guess.

"Professor would you need to use the leg locking curse?" That involved your feet right?

Let's face it Bart wasn't paying attention the minute that picture moved in front of him. He was staring at it and his mind was asking a bazillion questions about the creature and making all kinds of visual images of scenarios that would happen if he had ever found one and what he would do. It would be awesome and epic and he needed to find one now.

His eyes went back to the professor when he heard about what spell they would do first. Oh they were actually going to learn spells this was great. He wondered which awesome defense spell they might do, but then she said about a leg thing or better yet feet. If it's feet why was everyone saying legs? Weird or at least he found it weird.

"Can we learn something that makes someones toe nails grow and grow and grow until they can't walk." That sounded cool.

....

"No, Miss Fischer." Exploding feet.

What?




"Good, good. Those of you who mentioned the stickfast hex and I believe the gripping charm vos mentioned, you are right on trap." Standing up herself, she smoothed out her vest as she continued speaking. "The reason ve aren't going to be practicing the jelly legs jinx or leg locker curse... or the dancing feet charm..." Or toenail growing spells. What? "...is because ve vill be practicing something a little more...suitable, for this type of creature. Something they can't overcome so easily. But more of that later."

"Ve are actually going to be practicing a spell similar to both the stickfast hex and gripping charm, upon your shoes. It basically makes the traction upon the bottom of your shoes incredible. Very useful for a variety of situations, especially if you need to move about quickly and are upon rather slippery or soft ground." Such as dueling, or...running. Quickly rolling up her right sleeve, she readjusted her grip on her wand. "Granted, this spell vill vork on anything, even flesh, but the results just aren't as great as it is vith shoes. Leather I should say. You'll get the best results of this spell vith leather."

"You all ready?" YES? "The incantation for this spell is Henshu. Hen-shu. The vand movement is a twist and horizontal flick, like...a sidevays candy cane. Votch me. Carefully." With the demonstration, she held out her wand and gave a quick twist and horizontal flick...and then proceeded to demonstrate a second time.

"Feel free to start practicing if you don't haff any questions. Remember, aim for your shoes. Please."

OOC: Hai everyone! Goodness gracious, RL has gotten the better of me this week, hence the slow posts. BUT, be aware, now the posts will be arriving a bit faster. Congratz on sticking around this long! We'll be finishing very soon and getting on to more fun things. Gold stars for everyone!

Admittedly...Lex liked Alice's idea best--so long as they weren't exploding her feet. That was the big deal breaker right there. Explosions were cool and everything until you got caught on the wrong side of them. Unfortunately Alice wasn't right and no one would be explodigng anything today, rather they were learning some spell that worked best on shoes. The Gryffindor was in luck, she happened to be wearing shoes, yup and had a habit of wearing them when she went out and about.

Lex made a note of the incantation before watching carefully the Professor's demontration of the wand movement. It would be easily remembered for the candy reference and Alexa could appreciate that.

The girl drew her own wand at the Professor's go ahead and gave the wand movement a few tries. Twist and horizontal flick. Over and over she did this movement, ignoring the ache she felt in her wrists as she did. They weren't accustomed to such hard work, well actually they were but they were behaving like old people bones and she couldn't actually accept this. Twist and horizontal flick.

Lex was prepared to keep at this until the movement became a fluid one where she wouldn't hitch even a little while trying to cast. Wand movement counted in spells. obviously they did or ever spell would be able to work with a simple jab. Obviously.

Twist and horizontal flick.

So... true fact of the day? Alice Fischer was going to blow something up by the end of term. She was basically just laying out the plan for everyone, and no one else seemed to be taking her seriously. Merlin knew she was smart enough to get it done.

So they were learning a gripping charm? While it wasn't immediately apparent what this had to do with large yeti creatures, at least it was dead useful in running away. Which, to be honest, was what Mo would do if ever presented with a Chort in the woods. He twisted and flicked his wand gamely... and made sure to watch out for any Alice Fischers trying to blow stuff up.

They were learning a spell to help them run away better.

Yeah.

Should've figured.

West practiced the wand movement in silence. Sideways candy cane. OK. Not hard. And his shoes were leather.... the soles weren't though. He eyed his rather long booted feet and glanced up at Romanos again.

Henshu?

"Henshu." He repeated dutifully.

He was mentally writing a petition in his head.

So the feet Dancing spell wasn't correct but the spell they were about to do sounded really cool. Adi began to practice, starting with the incantation. "Henshu...Henshu...Henshu...Henshu...'' Not bad. That was pretty easy.

Time for the wand movement which seemed a tad bit tricky. A twist followed by a horizontal flick, twist and a horizontal flick, twist and a horizontal flick. After a few moments, Adi felt he was ready to try it on his shoes.

''Henshu!'' A twist and horizontal flick...